Many techniques for capturing spherical images require complicated equipment, including very expensive and specialized camera lenses or other fixtures that must be used. This in effect ensures that only highly specialized and/or trained professionals to generate such imagery. Collection of such data also typically requires specially equipped vehicles, which only increases the associated costs and specialization required for capturing spherical image data. In some cases, image capture involves driving along substantially every road of nearly every city to provide a satisfactorily large data set. Despite such investment in capturing this data, the resulting images are limited to images taken from roads. Furthermore, maintaining the image data requires constant collection, which again increases the costs associated with image acquisition. Despite these inherent limitations to the images available, numerous applications have been formed to utilize such spatially associated imagery. In particular, augmented reality applications on mobile devices have in recent years begun to find the images to be a great resource. Yet, the complicated and costly image collection process ultimately limits the potential uses of this data.
A solution to the foregoing restrictions is described in detail below. A method of acquiring virtual or augmented reality (VAR) scenes according to a preferred embodiment can include: at a plurality of locations of interest, providing one or more users with a predetermined pattern for image acquisition with an image capture device and for each of the one or more users, in response to a user input, acquiring at least one image at the location of interest. The method of the preferred embodiment can also include for each of the one or more users, in response to the acquisition of at least one image, providing the user with feedback to ensure a complete acquisition of the virtual or augmented reality scene; and receiving at a remote database, from each of the one or more users, one or more VAR scenes. One variation of the method of the preferred embodiment can include providing game mechanics to promote proper image acquisition and promote competition between users. Other features and advantages of the method of the preferred embodiment and its variations are described in detail below with reference to the following drawings.